Subscribe

Month: March 2016

G-d’s name is not mentioned in the megillah of Purim because it all looked so natural. Politics, connections, persuasion but behind it all G-d was guiding and putting all the right pieces in place. Isn’t that the story of our lives? Look at your life, how much of it (in retrospect at least) do you see as having been guided from Above?

Once all is said and done, He got His way only by ignoring the norms of this world He created—by breaking His own rules. If He can only perform miracles by bullying Nature, He may as well concede that our world is a place where He does not belong…

So He also makes another sort of miracle—the sort that blends seamlessly into the order of things below. These are impossible miracles: They break no rules, but change everything. We can them nature.

In truth, they are the most awesome of miracles—these that reveal the Infinite unrestrained within the finite nature of everyday things.

The very same Torah which warns us not to take revenge describes G‑d Himself as “a vengeful G‑d.” How can this be? If we are told not to be vengeful, if revenge is immoral, how can G‑d be vengeful?

But that is exactly the point. The very fact that G‑d is vengeful allows us humans not to be. No human justice system is foolproof, so ultimate justice is in His hands. He will right the wrongs and punish the wicked. In this world or in the next, in this lifetime or another, in ways we may never know, justice will be served.

It’s funny, you often hear people disparaging “the vengeful G‑d of the Bible.” They somehow think that a vengeful G‑d will produce vengeful followers. The opposite is true. It is precisely G‑d’s vengefulness that enables humans to let go of the desire for revenge. We know there is a true Judge, and He will do justice. So we humans can leave the vengeance to Him, and get on with living.